


(our love is a) work in progress

by cherryconke



Series: first love / late spring [2]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - After College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Artist/Model AU, Emotional Sex, Established Relationship, Falling In Love, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-28
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:33:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24415948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherryconke/pseuds/cherryconke
Summary: Six months later, Felix asks to paint him again.
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Series: first love / late spring [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1763203
Comments: 17
Kudos: 269





	(our love is a) work in progress

_If you’re a work of art_ _  
_ _I’m standing too close_ _  
_ _I can see the brush strokes_

_—_

Six months later, Felix asks to paint him again. 

In the beginning, Sylvain assumed their sessions wouldn’t continue. The piece _(Untitled)_ was done, finished, set to hang in the gallery for the rest of the year until the exhibition ended. For the first handful of weeks of their _relationship –_ Felix would scoff at the word and its weighty importance between the shy, fleeting smiles he thought he was good at hiding – his studio stood empty for days, and then weeks, dust motes floating phosphorescence as March bled into April. 

Sylvain, selfishly, loved the hours of Felix’s undivided attention, of spending days and nights wrapped up in one another. Talking about everything and nothing: dozens of mundane _what should we eat for dinner_ discussions, handfuls of tentatively hopeful conversations about the future. Sleeping curled up in one another: Felix’s sharp edges fitting perfectly in Sylvain’s arms, waking up to lazy, sleep-sweet mornings, the shape of Felix’s mouth ghosting over bite marks and bruises alike. Kissing through lazy afternoons and late nights: slow, tender ones melting into breathy hot friction, fleeting pecks pressed to foreheads and shoulders and cheeks.

But then Sylvain woke one morning in May to the soft swell of music flowing through the French doors of Felix’s bedroom, the smell of fresh pour over and almost-burnt toast bitter and bright in the golden hours between dawn and day.

(The rosy hue of focus looked good on Felix – hair piled up in a messy half bun, the static of sleep still clinging to the old college sweatshirt of Sylvain’s he’d taken to wearing around the apartment. Sylvain had been too preoccupied slipping his hands around Felix’s waist, pressing a flurry of soft kisses to the nape of his neck, to care much about the oil paint ringing the hems of the sleeves, sure to stain.

 _Back at it?_ Sylvain asked, nuzzling into Felix’s neck. 

_Mm,_ Felix hummed, turning to place a distracted kiss to the apple of Sylvain’s cheek. He pushed his empty coffee mug into Sylvain’s hands before turning back to the canvas, furrowing his brows at the dappled ochre-lilac sky. _Refill?)_

At first, it was landscapes: vast, quiet beaches, their rocky shorelines dotted with tiny smears of grey on cerulean, gulls flying chaotic and free over swells of white-capped waves; a glowing horizon beyond an endless grove of orange trees, viridian and peach-pink in the day’s dying light. Sylvain would grow bored of whatever book he was in the middle of and wander over to where Felix sat, perched on his stool, painting. Sylvain always thought Felix’s landscapes were beautiful – but these were technical perfection, the colors almost playful. He could clearly see the inspiration drawn from the regular walks Sylvain dragged him on, through parks tinted with wildflowers and grey-green canals.

When the canvases stacked up to an unmanageable height, Felix photographed each one to put up on his website, fretting over each piece’s price as he did so. Sylvain was sad to see them go, but the thought of Felix’s art, shipped out across the world, bringing joy to someone else – that almost made it worth it. 

Like anything else, the bursts of creativity came in ebbs and flows: nights spent up late, Felix finally falling into the warmth of Sylvain’s arms at three or four in the morning, paint-stained and smelling of cigarette smoke and espresso; entire days – usually after finishing a larger piece – where Felix wouldn’t even open the double doors to his studio, that rare break where Sylvain would take him out to late brunch and they’d spend hours wandering the city hand in hand. And everything in between, too: days spent fretting over art-block and hours of drawing mundane commission requests on his tablet, using Sylvain’s lap as a footrest.

Then, one afternoon, lounging on the couch with Felix curled up against his side, their fingers laced together as they watched some shitty reality show recommended by Hilda:

“Will you sit for me again?”

Sylvain hums, refocusing his gaze and attention from the absolute catastrophe that is _Love is Blind_ to where Felix is looking up at him. “Hm?”

Felix’s expression is intent, but his eyes keep flickering away to Sylvain’s jaw, like he’s been thinking about it for a while and is finally working up the nerve to say it. That’s something about Felix that he’s learned over the months they’ve been together – he’ll quietly stew on things until it pours out all at once in a rush of nervous energy. “Will you pose for me again?”

Sylvain can’t help the slow grin that unfurls across his face at the perfect peach staining Felix’s cheeks. That’s another thing he’s learned: what to say and do to make that full-body flush color the tips of Felix’s ears, all the best places to kiss for that hue to flourish into existence – the soft, pale curves of his thigh, the dimples above each hip, where his neck slopes into his shoulder.

“That depends. Are you paying the same rate as before?”

The exasperation radiating off of Felix is palpable, but Sylvain manages to catch his jaw before he turns away with an obvious eye roll, thumbing his chin up. “I’m kidding – ’course I will. Free of charge.”

It’s obvious that Felix doesn’t believe he’s serious, but Sylvain does his best to convince him, slotting their mouths together in a lingering kiss that ends with Felix perched in his lap, straddling his hips. _Am I your muse now, Fe?_ he teases, once he’s got Felix breathing hard against him, mouth falling open in the perfect shape of a sighed moan as he kisses down the line of Felix’s throat, humming playful laughter up and down his clavicle like the shivers that spark along Sylvain’s spine when Felix’s fingers dip down, down, down.

Sylvain continues trailing kisses anywhere he can reach: the sharp knob of Felix’s shoulder, the curve of his collarbone, around a rosy nipple. _Don’t tell me you only like me for my modeling skills,_ he teases, stroking Felix’s back, snapping the waistband of his leggings. 

Too soon, Felix starts to pull away, frowning at him. A flood of fond affection fills Sylvain – Felix’s stubborn petulance is adorable (sometimes irritating, but mostly adorable). He quirks an eyebrow up. “What’s up?”

Sometimes Felix looks at him – really looks at him – like Sylvain was made for him and him alone. It’s this _look_ of absolute certainty, like they were meant to coexist together, moonglow pushing and pulling the shape of each wave or two pieces of a perfect puzzle; brief, molten copper gazes that speak of not mere months, but of whole lifetimes spent together. It feels like sundrenched skin, like tender touches, like something close to love. It’s beautiful, and it’s terrifying, and _fuck,_ Sylvain’s never been in so deep.

“Don’t say that.”

Now it’s Sylvain’s turn to frown, reaching to brush the mess of dark bangs from Felix’s eyes. He traces the pads of his fingers across the cut of Felix’s jaw, letting his touch linger there. “Say what?”

Felix huffs, but there’s no real venom in it. “That I only like you because you model for me.” He pauses, and there’s that look again, the one that could punch the stars from the sky or carve Sylvain’s heart right out of his chest. “That’s not true.”

Sylvain can’t help but laugh, caught completely off guard by how seriously Felix looks up at him. His heart catches in his throat, stunned and struck with the weight of his words – they’re honest and blunt in the way that’s just so incredibly _Felix,_ and so Sylvain ducks his head low to slot their lips together, earnest and electric.

“I’m sorry,” he apologizes against Felix’s mouth, thumbs stroking skittering trails across flushed cheeks. “It was a joke.”

“Don’t joke about stuff like that,” Felix murmurs, breathless from their kiss, and before Sylvain can come up with an adequately witty response he promptly shuts him up and pulls him down into another kiss – and another, and another. 

—

Posing for Felix is different this time around.

For one, he’s infinitely more relaxed, all the tension bled out during a lazy morning drinking tea – too-hot coffee, for Felix – and reading in bed, soaking in the warmth of each other, bergamot steam curling citrus ribbons through the air. It was, in Sylvain’s opinion, a perfect start to the day: waking up late with lazy kisses that taste like they have all the time in the world, not bothering to leave bed until late afternoon, when he finally tugged Felix into the cramped shower with him.

Felix seems more at ease, too. He picks out each tiny, half-used paint tube with deliberate decisiveness: Sylvain recognizes the reds and oranges that were in constant rotation during their first sessions, but this time there’s viridian and lilac scattered among the dulcet warmth. There’s confidence in each choice he makes, born out of comfort, and the tides in Sylvain’s heart swell as he watches him line everything up with perfect, practiced precision.

He’s draped across the studio floor this time, loose linen wrapped around the curves of his bare thighs and trailing up his hip. His arms fall above his head, stretched out where Felix had positioned them earlier, but Sylvain doesn’t think twice to break the pose when Felix passes by on the way to the kitchen with a murky glass jar and a bottle of linseed oil, reaching out to trace the slender line of Felix’s ankle with his fingertips.

“We’ll never get started if you keep distracting me,” Felix chides, shaking his foot free from the loose circle of his hand. Sylvain sits up halfway to pout, even though Felix can’t see it, his back turned as the faucet starts to run. 

“I think you’re the one distracting me,” Sylvain argues, partly to be stubborn and partly because it’s true. A flood of memories overwhelmed him when he stepped back into the studio, when Felix’s hands lingered on the insides of his wrists and the swell of his hips when he arranged him, artfully disheveled, between the linen sheets. It’s a heady, greedy feeling: the freedom to look without the fear of being caught staring, the ability to reach out and pull Felix down for a half-dozen sleep-smeared kisses instead of just imagining it.

“Is that right?” Felix teases, his smirk mirthful as he sets the glass down and kneels next to where Sylvain’s sprawled out, reaching to rearrange him back into position. Sylvain is quicker, though, catching Felix’s hand with his own and bringing it to his mouth to press a clumsy kiss to the center of his palm. His sharp smile softens, and Sylvain hums, pleased with himself.

It’s easy to fall back into lazy contentedness, to let his limbs go loose and pliant as Felix rearranges him: nudging an elbow, tweaking the tilt of his chin, pressing a kiss to his cheek, stained bright pink and rose-freckled under his attention.

Sylvain’s attention drifts, but his gaze doesn’t. It’s impossible to look away from Felix, the late afternoon sun hitting him just so, golden hour illuminating him in every shade of haloed light. He’s focused, tongue teasing between teeth as he tilts his head at his easel, like he’s trying to puzzle something out, a problem to be solved where pigment and paper fall together. It’s a forgotten, familiar view, tinged with nostalgia from last autumn when Sylvain first sat here, hoping for a glimpse of sharp copper from over the edge of the canvas. 

_I fell in love with you like this,_ Sylvain realizes. _Right here, just like this._

He blinks, and Felix is standing above him, nudging him with the ball of his foot. He’s already fiddling with a half-empty pack of cigarettes and a lighter, getting paint all over the white plasticky cardboard. “C’mon. Break.”

This is familiar, too, wrapping the same skimpy robe around his waist and following Felix out onto the balcony. The sky has faded to heavy clouds layered between fading blue, haphazard and lovely in the near dusk. There’s that sweetness of late spring in the air, sapphire scilla perfumed with blooming magnolia and a thousand other signs of almost-summer: the sound of songbirds and the bubbling laughter of the kids who live downstairs running up and down the cobblestone, weed-strewn path of the alley; ivy vines crawling over the old, rusted brick, weaving their way through the metal railing, reaching towards the weak spring sun.

Sylvain drapes himself over where Felix leans against the iron, fitting their bodies together. He’ll never get sick of the way Felix’s head slots into his shoulder, the sinewy muscle of Felix’s hips beneath his palms, the soughed sigh he makes as each thread of tension in Felix’s shoulders melts against his body. He smells like paint and coffee when Sylvain leans in to smear a kiss across the side of his neck, fingers burrowing to join Felix’s in the pocket of his sweatshirt. 

“Having fun?” 

He can hear the smile in Felix’s question, even if his face is turned away, out towards the _ruelle verte._ Sylvain leans in closer, greedy for kisses, for _more._ Sometimes, he wants Felix so much it feels identical to need, like he’ll simply cease to exist if he can’t be near him. Thankfully, Felix indulges him today, turning in his arms to rest back against the railing. A flicker of annoyed amusement flashes across his face when Sylvain leans in to drop a kiss to the tip of his nose.

“Always,” Sylvain says.

Felix seems pleased, leaning up for another kiss, slotting their lips together. When they break away for breath, the sunset bathes Felix in pink neon glow, blurring all his edges, setting the messy outline of his haphazard bun ablaze.

“You’re beautiful,” Sylvain murmurs. It slips out, unbidden, an intangible truth laid bare in the balmy air of early summer. Felix scoffs and moves like he wants to turn away, blushing beneath the attention, but Sylvain resists, keeping him in the circle of his arms. He feels thoroughly enchanted by sight of Felix, flushed and filled with light. “Why don’t I ever get to paint you?”

Felix snorts. “I didn’t think you painted.” 

His hands wander up Sylvain’s chest, curling around his neck. He’s probably smearing paint across his skin, or getting it in his hair, or both, but Sylvain’s found he doesn’t care quite as much when it’s Felix making a mess, the consistent exception to every rule in his life.

“I don’t.” Sylvain leans in for another kiss, but he lingers this time, letting it deepen naturally. In some ways, it feels like their first, a breath of fresh air after a lifetime of staying indoors. Felix’s lashes flutter, heavy with something that looks like want. “But I’d paint you.”

This sort of forward, direct attention usually makes Felix squirm away. There’s a delicate balance to strike with the art of affection and Felix, but it seems he hasn’t pushed too far today, based on the bemused half-scowl of a smile on Felix’s face. Sylvain waits, practicing his patience, stroking both thumbs over the dimples in his back.

“Okay,” Felix finally says. He scratches the blunt edges of his nails through the tangle of hair at the nape of Sylvain’s neck, soothing sweetness that Sylvain can’t help but revel in.

“Okay, I can paint you?”

“Yeah,” Felix breathes against his lower lip. He’s so close, filling the periphery of Sylvain’s vision, fingers curling around the curve of his shoulder. “Okay.” 

They don’t make it to the bed, entirely too focused on each other to stumble the handful of steps from the couch to Felix’s room. Goose wakes up with a discontented grumble, hopping off the couch when Sylvain spills Felix out of his arms and onto the cushions, a vision of flushed cheeks and rose-bitten lips beneath him.

“Gorgeous,” Sylvain hums between slow kisses. His attention flits across Felix’s face – the line of his nose, the curves of his cheeks, the angle of his jaw. His hands keep busy, pushing off the loose sweatshirt to bury his nose into the slope of Felix’s shoulder, kissing careful affection into the peach flush spreading down the learned field of his body. _Felix,_ he whispers, his name a hymn pulled from the heavens themselves, a luxurious shape unfurling across his tongue. He leans up to hush a sigh from Felix’s mouth with his. “Fucking _beautiful.”_

“You’re embarrassing,” Felix breathes.

 _You’re perfect,_ Sylvain thinks.

Felix’s fingers mirror his, plucking at the ribbon of his skimpy robe while Sylvain sets to undressing him, one piece of clothing at a time until they’re both naked, bathed in dying light and each other. Sylvain takes his time, mapping his fingers and mouth down as Felix squirms beneath his touch, breathy mewls and broken moans splintering apart until they coalesce into one long, quiet _S-Sylvain_ when he finally fits the pads of his thumbs into the hollows of Felix’s hips and swallows him down.

Usually, one (or both) of them are too eager for sex to last very long, still drunk off of learning each other’s bodies, overwhelmed with the _newness_ of it all – but there’s a slowness to today, a soft plush comfort of familiarity, brought on by falling back into the routine that brought them together in the first place. Felix fists his fingers through Sylvain’s hair, tugging with gentle encouragement rather than the usual frantic way he bucks his hips up for more whenever Sylvain blows him. Sylvain responds in kind, stroking slow, even trails up the inside of Felix’s thighs, thumbing gently over his hole, still loose from when Sylvain had fingered him last night.

It’s the most gentle – or at least, the most intimate – he thinks he’s ever been, not just with Felix, but with any of his past partners. It’s overwhelming, taking the open vulnerability Felix is giving him like a precious thing to be treated with care, his body pliant and trusting in Sylvain’s hands. There’s an edge of desperation to all of his own movements, like he’s determined to show Felix how he feels through touch and taste alone, since the proper words evaporate on his tongue every time he thinks about it. _I think I love you._

Sylvain picks him apart slowly, taking his time opening Felix up with spit-slicked fingers and careful licks, until Felix is yielding and trembling around his hand, each breath an almost-gasp in the quiet comfort of the apartment. It’s a treat to have Felix like this, sprawled out and boneless, eyes half-lidded and lashes tear-starred. He looks thoroughly overwhelmed, his signature blush a blotchy constellation blooming across the top of his chest as Sylvain licks over the head of his cock and spreads his fingers inside.

“It’s okay to come,” he murmurs into the crease of Felix’s thigh, covering a dark mole with a gentle kiss. “We can go again.”

Those words alone are enough to make Felix fall apart like it’s nothing, one hand wound tight in the waves of Sylvain’s hair, the other clutching crinkles into the couch cushion as he hiccups out a strangled moan and paints his stomach white. A ribbon of pride curls in Sylvain’s gut, borne of the knowledge that _he’s_ the reason behind each gasped breath, that _he’s_ the only one who gets to see Felix like this as he spills into Sylvain’s mouth, clenching around his fingers. 

Felix is still boneless and breathing hard when Sylvain hoists him up in his arms, almost tripping over their pile of clothes on his way through the bedroom doors where they tumble into bed together. Sylvain kisses him in earnest, cradling his cheeks in each hand, pulling him to sprawl against the width of his chest. He can’t help but smile into Felix’s mouth, pleased when he loops his arms around his neck to curl up even closer into him, deepening their kiss. 

“Round two?” Felix finally pulls away to ask, his eyes hazy and hungry, half-hard against Sylvain’s belly where he’s now perched in his lap, hips searching for friction. Sylvain thinks briefly of their unfinished session – the paint will probably harden and crack where it still clings to the brush bristles, but there’s no way he’s going to interrupt Felix from getting what he wants, not when he’s being so open and trusting.

“Insatiable,” Sylvain teases. Felix laughs, and it feels like starlight where it reverberates through Sylvain’s bones. It bubbles up from his own chest, too, a deep, genuine rumble that catches him completely off guard. When was the last time he laughed during sex?

“Stop teasing,” Felix chides. “I want you.”

He says it casually, carelessly, like it doesn’t lodge itself between Sylvain’s ribs and make a home there, dangerously close to the raw, exposed nerve of his heart. There’s a prickle of tears pressing against the back of his eyelids, sudden and overwhelming, the weight of it all catching up at once. If Felix notices him trying to blink them away, he doesn’t say anything, just drags him down for another kiss, and then another, one palm cupped carefully around his cheek. 

There’s a brief pause, where Sylvain takes the opportunity to roll over and reach into the bedside table for lube. Felix continues fisting his own cock in his lap, looking like he came straight from one of Sylvain’s most salacious dreams with his bun bouncing messily against the nape of his neck, whimpering in delight when Sylvain reaches a hand around his thigh to smear a wet finger against his hole.

This part isn’t something they’ve practiced enough to perfect yet. There’s still some fumbling and adjusting, lining up their bodies until Felix can lift himself up and reach behind him to slide Sylvain’s cock between his cheeks. Sylvain holds his hips steady and watches the flicker of expressions cross over Felix’s face as the tip catches and teases on his rim – the way his lips part in a gasp when Sylvain slowly presses up, the scrunch of his nose and his brows knitting together in concentrated focus as he starts to bear down. 

Sylvain’s usual rambling praise is stolen from his lungs as he holds Felix, props him up against his knees and lets him move at his own slow pace. It’s almost an out of body experience, this careful, holy reverence something Sylvain’s never felt before with anyone, watching Felix crumble around him with pleading sighs of _more, more._ He leans in to kiss the ridge of Felix’s brow bone, stroking the mess of sweaty hair away from the nape of his neck.

“Look at you,” he murmurs, reaching his hand around Felix’s thigh to run a fingertip along where they’re connected, Felix’s rim stretched and swollen around his cock. “You’re gorgeous. Incredible.”

A moan flumes from Felix’s mouth, soft and broken and so, so lovely. It’s second only to the way he trills out Sylvain’s name, slurred with pleasure, when he tilts his hips up just so. _“S-Sylvain,_ yes, right there–”

It’s intoxicating, getting to see him like this, undone and overwhelmed, burning so bright. Silk-red shadows rise and fall across the plane of his body, blush fire fierce in the waning light. Felix steadies a sweaty palm across his chest, fingers splayed wide as he sways and rocks his hips against him. Sylvain can’t decide where to touch, so he lets his palms roam: caressing up the curve of Felix’s spine, coming around to grip his hip, straying across the contracting muscles of his stomach, rippling steel beneath velvet. 

When Sylvain looks up, Felix’s eyes are open again, hazy whiskey searing into him. Something lurches inside his chest, hot and heavy as his bones burst into bloom and he surges against Felix, salt-starved, licking the sweat from bowed lips. Felix goes easy when he flips him around, spread out on the sheets, his hair tie a discarded halo across the pillowcase.

“Sylvain, I’m–”

“I know,” he pants, pressing his forehead up against Felix’s, their chests rising and falling together. “I know, me too. I’ve got you, sweetheart.”

Felix sobs, a cloud of breath between them that Sylvain can’t help but swallow down with a low moan of his own. He rolls his hips in slow undulations, afloat in a steady wave of desire: for Felix, for every hushed cry and slow kiss they share, for the way his body responds to Sylvain like he’s a hair-trigger touch away from unraveling completely. Sweat lines the edges of Felix’s face, his flush all the way to tips of his ears, and _fuck,_ Sylvain’s never wanted with such intensity like this, every piece of him devoted to giving Felix the world.

 _Angel,_ he murmurs, fingers dipping between the dew-sweat where their bodies stick together to circle his hand around Felix’s cock, _you feel so good._ Felix nods, mouth falling open in a delicious whine. He tilts his head up to smear a chaste kiss to Sylvain’s cheek and the sheer intimacy alone almost makes him come. _It’s like you were made for me._

When Sylvain finally shifts his hips up, Felix shatters apart, fingers clutching and curling into the tops of his shoulders, ankles locking behind his back as he clenches down. He pulses weakly around Sylvain’s cock as he paints Sylvain’s hand with cum, smeared hot between their bellies. It’s impossible not to follow shortly after, not when Felix is panting beneath him, flushed and full of his cock, looking completely and thoroughly overwhelmed. White noise comes over him in a rush, static waves of indulgence washing away every thought that isn’t _Felix, Felix, Felix._

Clarity comes slow and fuzzy, but he’s coherent enough to not completely crush Felix beneath him when he pulls out and collapses off to the side. Sylvain tastes salt when he tugs him close and kisses him again, his lungs full of the wet hum of ragged, boneless satisfaction. 

_(How will I know that he’s the one?_ he’d asked Mercedes last week, their iced coffees dripping condensation in the surge of late-May heat, trickling down his wrist as they walked Goose along the canals on one of the rare days she didn’t have lessons to plan and he wasn’t locked away in the lab with Lin. _What if I never know?_

Mercedes laughed, a sound of kindness laced with an edge of exasperation, sipping her coffee as she turned to him. _You’ll know, Sylvain. I think you might already.)_

Felix rolls on top of him, fitting his face into his neck, kissing across the collar of freckles ringing Sylvain’s shoulders. He lets out a long, satisfied sigh, a copper sound lost among cotton sheets. Sylvain responds by wrapping himself around him, pressing lazy kisses to Felix’s forehead as they both catch their breath, rust and dark blue tangled together across the pillows. 

_Maybe this is what it’s supposed to feel like,_ Sylvain thinks, staring up at the intricate crown molding lining Felix’s ceiling, eggshell white saturated in shifting shadows. Felix shifts against him, their limbs twisting together: the flutter of sweat-damp hair sticking to Sylvain’s shoulder, the wet, hot bursts of condensation fanning across his chest, the rise and fall of Felix’s ribs against his side. Sylvain feels lighter than he ever has. _To be in love._

_It’s so easy to hold you_ _  
_ _You’re so easy to mold to_   
_It’s a dream to be close to you_ _  
Didn’t know you were meant for me_

_—_

There were three things on Felix’s to-do list this weekend.

None of them involved going to the art supply store, and yet, here he is, dragged there by a series of chaotic events involving Goose, a jar of spilled paint water, and his mother’s old pitcher – the one he kept his brushes in – shattered into pieces. He’d immediately written the pitcher off as a lost cause, too delicate to piece back together despite Sylvain’s insistent, heartbroken offers to try. The real issue was that once they’d gathered up all the shards from the floor, Felix had turned around to the sight of Goose sitting in the middle of the living room, surrounded by the splintered remnants of all his paintbrushes. Each one was shredded into a doggy-sized toothpick, and she looked _entirely_ too pleased with herself.

Sylvain insisted on replacing them for him despite Felix’s irritation – he could afford it more than Sylvain could – and somewhere halfway through the argument they’d ended up in Sylvain’s shitty red Volvo, parked two blocks down from DeSerres. 

(“At least let me chip in. Or take you on a date, or something. It’s _my_ dog’s fault,” Sylvain persisted, one palm catching Felix’s, pressing a kiss to the back of his knuckles as he rummaged through his center console for meter change. Felix pretended to mull it over, like he _wasn’t_ going to take Sylvain up on the offer of a date night, before agreeing – not to Sylvain chipping in, but a date to the newest exhibition at MAC.) 

Prisms of light refract off the stained glass of the storefront, dancing rainbows saturating sheets of gold leaf and aluminum. Sylvain wanders off almost immediately, distracted by the display of colorful craft kits at the front of the store while Felix finds a shopping basket and makes a beeline for the back corner. Jar after jar of brushes takes up the entire wall, organized by size and type – bristle, sable, synthetic – but he gravitates towards the ones that look and feel like his favorites at home, running his thumb over their stiff ends. 

He’s in the middle of pressing a flat brush across the inside of his wrist, testing its firmness, when Sylvain finds him again. It’s unfair, Felix thinks, how good he looks. Even in joggers and a rumpled t-shirt – his lazy weekend uniform that Felix has started to steal bits and pieces of to wear around the apartment – he looks like a fucking _model,_ all perfectly disheveled hair and bright, wide grin. He swoops in to press a peck to Felix’s forehead, who definitely does _not_ melt under the casual attention. 

“What’s in the basket?” Felix asks, eyes flicking down to Sylvain’s hand. It’s overflowing with a dozen different arts-and-crafts kits and a ridiculous amount of tinted jars, ranging from rose to indigo and every shade between. 

“Oh,” Sylvain laughs, looking down sheepishly. He follows, a hand circling Felix’s waist as he turns back to the wall and starts to pull more brushes down. The first couple of times Sylvain slung an arm around his hip waiting in line for coffee, or pressed the pads of his fingers into his thigh as they sat side-by-side on the subway, Felix’s first instinct was to pull away in surprise. The frequency and sheer amount of affection Sylvain liked to show through his actions was something he’d been wholly unprepared for, but over the months he’s learned to try and lean into it instead of startle, rewarded with a genuine, bright smile whenever he does. Even now, he finds himself enjoying it in a weird, half-embarrassed sort of way.

“You know how I asked if I could paint you?”

It’s been a few weeks since Sylvain brought the idea up that day on the balcony – but Felix has been too preoccupied churning out commissions to ask Sylvain to sit for him again. He’s more than a little curious about Sylvain’s style – he’s watched him add layer upon layer of missing paint to existing works of art, expertly matching color and texture, so he’s clearly got an eye for it. But Felix has never actually seen anything original, not past the scribbled hearts he leaves on the sticky notes papered across the fridge when he has to leave early in the morning. 

“Mm.” Felix hums, noncommittal, plucking a sable round brush from a jar. It’s soft, nearly identical to one of his favorites at home. He gives it a quick once-over before tossing it in the basket.

“Well, if you still want to, I was thinking–”

“You can just use my paint, you know. I have too much.” 

Sylvain blinks down at him, a surprised, slow grin unfurling across his face. “Thanks, but I have some specific colors in mind.”

 _What? He’s been thinking about this?_ Now it’s Felix’s turn to look nonplussed, frowning up at the pleased smile on Sylvain’s face, the one that says _I’ve got something up my sleeve._ He turns to the overflowing basket, peering in for a closer look. “Acrylic?”

Felix usually paints with oils, preferring the depth of color and the freedom the slow drying time gives him to layer paint in heavy, broad strokes. It figures that the mess, inevitable stains all over his clothes and hands, and stink of turpentine are all tradeoffs Sylvain would prefer not to make.

Sylvain squeezes his hip. “Yeah, acrylic. I have a plan.”

Felix can’t help raise an eyebrow at this. Most of Sylvain’s plans involve horribly romantic things, like homemade dinner by candlelight and romantic walks through Parc Maisonneuve at sunset. All things Felix had convinced himself only belonged in movies, and definitely didn’t fit into his life, unable to imagine himself ever interested in being pampered or treated with such care. Six months has softened him, he thinks, but he can’t say he minds it.

Sylvain must see the trepidation flicker across Felix’s face, because he just laughs and pulls him in closer, lips soft where they press against his cheek. “It’s a surprise. Trust me, sweetheart.”

 _Trust._ This, too, is something Felix has had to work on. It turns out that only keeping a handful – well, three, if he’s being exact – of people close to him hadn’t exactly been the best preparation for everything a serious relationship entailed. (Felix would never really consider his freshman-year fling with Ferdinand a real relationship, let alone a serious one.) In some ways, it helped that Sylvain was nearly as clueless as he was, at least for anything that’s lasted more than a few weeks – he’s admitted as much. It set them both on equal ground to stumble their way through hard conversations and harder nights spent in stupid fights. 

_(My therapist said it’s all about communication,_ Sylvain had said one afternoon, after a particularly invigorating morning of make up sex. They both might struggle to use their words, but Felix can’t help the way his body responds to Sylvain’s touch, the way they fit together so perfectly every time.)

So Felix presses past the uncertainty and his inherent dislike of surprise _anything_ and leans into Sylvain, pressing his forehead against his chest. He smells like citrus shampoo and fresh-cracked pepper from the eggs he’d made for breakfast that morning; like comfortable, domestic warmth unfurling all the way to his toes.

“Okay,” Felix says. Sylvain smiles. 

At the register, he dumps the contents of both baskets together, squeezing his way between Sylvain’s hips and the counter. _All those art kits are for Max, anyway,_ is his argument, one that Sylvain half-heartedly protests. He only falls silent when Felix agrees to not one rain-checked date, but two.

—

Felix wakes up the next morning to the smell of fresh coffee and Sylvain’s lips hovering over his forehead.

“Morning,” he grumbles. It’s second nature to reach out and pull Sylvain closer, curling against the heavy, comfortable weight he can barely sleep without now. He feels more than sees the shape of Sylvain’s grin press against his cheek through the sleep-haze, melting into soft kisses when Felix turns to bury his nose into the slope of his neck, seeking warmth. Sylvain always runs hot, but Felix can’t say he minds it, not when he’s able to burrow himself beneath his bulk, better than any down comforter or weighted blanket. Sylvain hums a delighted laugh to his forehead, bright and bubbly and _far_ too awake for a Sunday morning.

“Breakfast is ready.” Sylvain’s moving away far too soon, despite Felix’s attempts to keep him in bed, gently extracting himself from his arms with practiced patience, ignoring the huffs and grumbles he gives, still craving _warmth_ and _sleep_ and _Sylvain._ He swoops in for another kiss, brushes the bangs from Felix’s face, and moves into the living room, sweatpants riding low on his hips. “It’s on the counter for you.”

Felix eats standing up, patiently shoving a very nosy Trout away from the strips of bacon – crispy, almost-burnt but not quite – Sylvain fried up earlier. There’s eggs and toast and coffee, too, all thoughtfully laid out next to the jar of hot peppers they’d bought when Sylvain dragged him to the farmer’s market last weekend. 

Goose starts to whine at his feet, giving him the best puppy eyes she’s got.

“I still haven’t forgiven you for yesterday, you know.” 

This is technically untrue. Trout meows insistently at him while Goose stands up on her hind legs, pawing at his knee. Sylvain had been nervous, at first, to introduce the two – _I don’t think Goose has ever been around cats before,_ he’d worried, scrolling through countless articles on the subject before finally calling Ashe, who assured them _it’ll probably be fine, Goose has no prior history of being cat-reactive, just take it slow._ The first time Sylvain brought her over, Trout spent a good thirty seconds sniffing Goose before breaking out in rumbling, rhythmic purrs, his bottlebrush tail curling affectionately around her thin, wiry one. 

“Down,” Felix chides, grabbing his coffee and rubbing the sleep from his eyes as he rounds the kitchen counter and peers into the studio. 

Sylvain’s obviously been up early preparing – all the canvases are stacked neatly against the wall, the two stools pushed out of the way by the fireplace. The room is mostly empty now, save for a pile of sheets spread out in the center of the hardwoods. It takes Felix a moment to realize that Sylvain’s pulled the back pillows off the couch and piled them beneath the sheets, forming some sort of bizarre, lumpy floor cushion. 

“What’s this?” He frowns at the sight of his easel pushed up into the corner of the room, his chair tucked neatly beneath his work table. 

Sylvain grins from where he’s kneeling on the floor, carefully tucking the edge of a sheet beneath a cushion. His smile is sweet as sherbet and warmer than the sun itself when he turns to look up at Felix. “Your surprise.”

“My surprise,” Felix repeats blankly. He sips his coffee; maybe he’s just not awake enough yet to understand what Sylvain has planned.

“I thought I could paint you today,” Sylvain says.

His frown deepens. “But the easel–”

Sylvain climbs to his feet. He takes Felix’s free hand in his and cups the other to the curve of his cheek. The way he looks at him, the perfect picture of adoration, is enough to set his cheeks aflame in burning blush. It’s far too gentle, but he can’t help but tilt his head into it, gaze softening across all of Sylvain’s sundrenched freckles, his crooked dimple shining bright. 

“Fe,” he says, deep and earnest as ever. “Do you trust me?”

There it is again. _Trust._

He nods, unable to find the right words, and lets Sylvain pull him gently over to the cushioned sheets, settling him there with his knees crossed. 

“I’d like your hair back, if that’s alright,” Sylvain murmurs into his ear, and Felix nods again, breathless as Sylvain takes his time unwinding his sleep-mussed bun and retying it up on the crown of his head. He lets the coffee work its magic as Sylvain works, almost lulled back to sleep by steady, broad hands teasing out the tangles with gentle touches and the occasional kiss pressed to the back of his naked neck. 

“Perfect,” he says, quiet and reverent when Felix turns his head to look back at him. The morning light catches filtered starbursts in his lashes, casting auburn shadows across freckled cheeks. Sylvain’s gaze is heavy with want where it falls upon him, and Felix could almost swear there are galaxies behind his eyes, countless tiny stars of forget-me-nots and calendula blooms. He reaches for him, but then Sylvain’s hands are running soothing circles across his back, pushing his shirt up and off his shoulders, and then he’s taking the mug from his grip and laying him down on the crisp-cool sheets. Felix shimmies out of his briefs, only a little embarrassed at how that molten gaze of delight has him half-hard as Sylvain folds his shirt neatly and drapes it over the back of the sofa. 

Sylvain taps his side, so he turns over, stretching out the tension in his wrists. The sheets feel good against his skin, the cushions almost comfortable. He twists his head to the side, squinting through the early morning light. Slanted sunbeams kiss the backs of his calves and warm everything north of his shoulder blades. When he cranes his neck, it’s to Sylvain’s hair wine-dipped crimson in the sun, the expression on his face rose-jeweled and unbearably sweet.

“How do you want me?” Felix asks. Blush stains his cheeks, hot with the weight of Sylvain’s attention.

“Hmm.” He taps his lip, brows furrowing in thought before he scoots up to Felix’s head and starts to position him. 

This part is easy, relaxing into Sylvain’s touch. The familiar glide of his palms push him halfway onto his side, bringing a bent arm beneath his head to cushion the side of his face while the other reaches beyond the safe haven of the sheet and onto the cracked hardwoods peeling paint. Sylvain straightens his spine and smooths out his shoulder blades with patient, careful hands. It’s not very different from all the times he’s wrestled him closer in bed, half-asleep, or kissed praise down the cragged waves of his back – slower, more deliberate, maybe, but Felix finds himself relaxing into it, letting the softness of the morning blur out the tension.

Sylvain exhales, rubbing a thumb down the back of his thigh. “Okay. Is this good?” 

Felix flexes his fingers and his toes, tenses and relaxes. “Yeah.”

He can hear the _pop_ of jars, the muffled _thunk_ of Sylvain setting them down carefully on the bit of newspaper he’s spread out nearby. “I put them on top of the fridge this morning, but they might still be a little cold…”

Realization dawns on him in that moment: Sylvain doesn’t want to just paint him. He wants to use his body as an actual canvas; a vessel for paint, an ephemeral space for careful attention and pigmented hues. Everything starts to click together: the cushioned sheets, the acrylic paint. It feels as though arrows of embarrassed delight have been shot straight through his heart, wedged between the cracks between his second and third ribs. Felix turns up towards him, Sylvain’s eyes sweet honey whiskey and liquid affection when they meet his.

“This was the surprise?” Felix asks, his voice sounding faint and far away to himself.

Worry pools in the creases between Sylvain’s eyebrows, in the hollows of his wrists as his hands slow. Doubt mixes there, too, and something soft bleeds into Felix’s heart at the sight of it. It’s not exactly what he expected, but now that he thinks about it, it’s not so far off the mark for Sylvain. He’s expressed appreciation for Felix’s body before, slowly chipping away at the voice inside of his head that likes to point out the softness of his stomach and the awkward jut of his hips. That’s something Felix has learned: there’s so many ways Sylvain shows affection. Maybe this is just another one.

“Yeah.” Sylvain’s fingers dance spirals up his side. “Is that okay?”

Felix unsticks his tongue from the roof of his mouth and nods.

There’s a sweetness to it, the cool, damp spread of paint against his skin. Sylvain starts in the center of his shoulder blades, working in slow, deliberate strokes with long pauses in between, almost as if he’s strategizing each color, every new layer of paint and how it’ll flow along Felix’s body. He tries his best to force himself into relaxed compliance, but it’s hard when every nerve of his body feels alight with anticipation, manifesting itself in shivers that slip down his spine and his fingers twitching involuntarily everytime Sylvain dabs paint onto his skin. He fights with himself to breathe deeply, feeling strangely vulnerable splayed out like this.

It must not be as subtle as he hopes it is, because there’s a long pause before Sylvain moves into his field of vision, brushing away the hair that’s fallen into his face. “Hey, we don’t have to do this. Just say the word and I’ll clean you up.”

Felix breathes out, then in. _Do you trust me?_ echoes through his head. He closes his eyes and swallows hard. 

“No. I’m okay.”

Another pause, this one punctuated by the pressure of Sylvain’s lips against his temple. “Okay. Just tell me if you need to stop.”

Sylvain keeps one hand on his thigh, grounding him, as the other works on transferring paint from the palette to his skin, slowly wearing him down until he’s boneless with each brush stroke trailing up his back. It’s easier to relax into it when Sylvain’s humming soft melodies and verses, pausing every so often with intermittent _you alright?_ s soothed into the shell of his ear, and soon Felix finds himself drifting in and out of sleep, unable to tell whether he’s been lying like this for ten minutes or an hour.

Somewhere along the way, the ticklish spread of the brush is replaced by Sylvain’s hands, smearing paint down his back with the pads of his fingers. Felix winds up losing track of time, the rhythmic, gentle pattern almost putting him to sleep. With his head turned like this, he can watch Sylvain from the corner of his eye, catching the concentrated pout curling across his lips as he wraps his body in pigmented hues. He stares at the fuzz of Sylvain’s sweatshirt and thinks about how the last time Annie dragged him downtown to shop, he’d picked up a pair of joggers and the first thing he thought was _Sylvain would like this._ He breathes in bergamot citrus layered over the faint smell of cigarettes and an occasional kiss pressed to the back of his neck. He shifts, and the whirlwind of his thoughts quiets as he focuses solely on the divinity dripping from Sylvain’s fingertips, dappling careful dots of paint across his back.

A freckled hand wakes him, tracing the outline of his jaw. Felix blinks, and Sylvain’s smiling down at him, the sun halfway across the sky spilling spinning prisms across the studio where it hits the chandelier.

“I’m done,” Sylvain murmurs quietly, like he’s afraid to break the quiet peacefulness of the afternoon. “Want to see?”

Felix nods, blinking the sleep from his eyes. Sylvain shuffles the flimsy full-length mirror he’s had since college (it’s shitty, but surprisingly helpful for anatomy practice) over to where he’s sprawled out, propping it sideways on the ground against his knees.

“Alright, you can look now.”

Bright hues burst efflorescence across his back, olive greens and radiant saffron twining with lilac and tawny gold. They’re poppies, smudged up and down the length of him, flushed orange and crimson blooms peppered with bougainvillea and chicory and a hundred different shades of green stems laced together in blurred gradients. Delphiniums – his mother’s favorite, Felix realizes, his rabbit-heart thumping wildly in his chest – span his shoulders, branching out from the center of his spine. It’s beautiful, in a messy, wild sort of way, a physical manifestation of affection unfolded across his body in all it’s devastating glory.

But Sylvain’s shy smile is even more beautiful where he kneels, gazing fondly down at him.

Felix doesn’t often have the right words, but right now he _really_ can’t even begin to articulate what he’s feeling, so he sticks with what he knows: he pulls himself up on his knees and shuffles to Sylvain, careful not to let his still-drying back brush the sheets. His palms cup each of Sylvain’s cheeks, paint-flecked like kaleidoscoped stars, and he pulls him in for a kiss, pouring the overwhelming wave of emotions back into him: his heart full of wonder and joy and a hundred, thousand other things Felix couldn’t name if he tried. Sylvain drinks it in, their lips slotting together perfectly.

Sylvain sighs relief into his mouth. “Do you like it?”

“I do,” Felix says. Sylvain beams, his blush rosy, freckled crimson where it floods his cheeks. 

_I love you,_ he thinks. 

**Author's Note:**

> :') 
> 
> lil epilogue before the eventual holst/glenn wedding fic <3 
> 
> ty isa, eth, and levi for looking this over for me!!! 
> 
> i'm on [twitter](https://twitter.com/cherryconke)
> 
> —
> 
> (i added 6 songs to the end of the [first love / late spring playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0bQCzH8x9ZKZeuZ3FchI5E?si=hQv2utnDRZKxcQdn5beIEA) that i listened to on repeat while writing this!)


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